Representing violence in France 1760-1820

Volume: 2013:10

Series: SVEC

Volume Editors: Thomas Wynn

Series Collaborators: Jean-Christophe Abramovici, Université de Valenciennes; Malcolm Cook, University of Exeter; Michel Delon, Université Paris-Sorbonne; John Dunkley, University of Aberdeen; Pierre Frantz, Université Paris-Sorbonne; Stéphanie Genand, Université de Rouen; Odile Jaffré-Cook, University of Nottingham; Will McMorran, Queen Mary, University of London; Ourida Mostefai, Boston College; Olivier Ritz, Université Paris-Sorbonne; Yann Robert, University of Illinois at Chicago; Pierre Saint-Amand, Brown University; Catriona Seth, Université de Lorraine; Rebecca Sopchik, Columbia University; Michèle Vallenthini, Université Paris-Sorbonne and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg; Thomas Wynn, Durham University

Publication Date: 2013

Pages: 299

ISBN: 978-0-7294-1076-2

Price: £65

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About

Violence was an inescapable part of people’s daily lives in eighteenth-century France. The Revolution in general and the Terror in particular were marked by intense outbursts of political violence, whilst the abuse of wives, children and servants was still rife in the home. But the representation of violence in its myriad forms remains aesthetically troublesome.
Drawing on correspondence, pamphlets, novels and plays, authors analyse the portrayal of violence as a rational act, the basis of (re)written history, an expression of institutional power, and a challenge to morality. Contributions include explorations of:
• the use of the dream sequence in fiction to comprehend violence;
• how rhetoric can manipulate violent historical truth as documented by Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France;
• the political implications of commemorating the massacre at the Tuileries of 10 August 1792;
• how Sade’s graphic descriptions of violence placed the reader in a morally ambivalent position;
• the differing responses of individuals subjected to brutal incarceration at Vincennes and the Bastille;
• the constructive force of violence as a means of creating a sense of self.
Thomas Wynn, Introduction
I. Violence and the crisis of reason
John Dunkley, Gambling and violence: Loaisel de Tréogate as a neuroscientist?
Olivier Ritz, Metaphors of popular violence in the Revolutionary debate in the wake of Edmund Burke
Stéphanie Genand, Dreaming the Terror: the other stage of revolutionary violence
Pierre Saint-Amand, Gothic explosions: Révéroni Saint-Cyr’s Pauliska ou La Perversité moderne
II. Violence and the (re)writing of history
Catriona Seth, The ‘dix août’ (10 August 1792) in literary texts
Michèle Vallenthini, Violence in history and the rise of the historical novel: the case of the marquis de Sade
Yann Robert, The everlasting trials of Jean Calas: justice, theatre and trauma in the early years of the Revolution
Pierre Frantz, Violence in the theatre of the Revolution
III. Violence and institutions
Thomas Wynn, Violence, vulnerability and subjectivity in Sade
Odile Jaffré-Cook, The Bastille or the ‘Enfer de Dutailli de Saint-Pierre’
Ourida Mostefai, Violence, terrorism and the legacy of the Enlightenment: debates around Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Revolution
IV. Violence and morality
Malcolm Cook, Violence in the work of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Rebecca Sopchik, Violence and the monster: the Private lives of the duc d’Orléans
Jean-Christophe Abramovici, ‘Avec une telle violence que…’: Sade’s use of the term violence
Will McMorran, The sound of violence: listening to rape in Sade
Michel Delon, Violence in the novels of Charlotte [de] Bournon-Malarme
Summaries
Bibliography
Index

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